Monthly House Price Index statistics for March 2018 published

Published: 23 May 2018

Average price of property in Scotland up 6.7 per cent on previous year.

The latest publication of the monthly UK House Price Index (UK HPI) shows that the average price of a property in Scotland in March 2018 was £146,009 – an increase of 6.7 per cent on March in the previous year and an increase of 0.5 per cent when compared to the previous month. This compares to a UK average of £224,144, which was an increase of 4.2 per cent on March in the previous year and virtually unchanged when compared to the previous month.

The volume of residential sales in Scotland in January 2018 was 5,909 – a decrease of 7.4 per cent on January 2017. This compares with annual decreases in sales volumes of 12.0 per cent in England and 7.3 per cent in Wales in January 2018, and 12.4 per cent in Northern Ireland Quarter 1 - 2018.

Registers of Scotland Business Development and Information Director Kenny Crawford said: “Average prices in Scotland continued their upward trend in March with an increase of 6.7 per cent when compared to March 2017. Average prices have been increasing each month since March 2016, when compared with the same month of the previous year.

“Residential sales volumes decreased in January. The annual decrease of 7.4 per cent when compared with January 2017 in Scotland is in the context of large decreases across the rest of the UK. The cumulative volume of sales for Scotland for the financial year to date – from April 2017 to January 2018 – was 87,097. This is an increase of 5.7 per cent on the equivalent year to date position in the previous financial year 2016/17.”

Average price increases were recorded in the vast majority (27) of local authorities in March 2018, when comparing prices with the previous year. The biggest price increases were in Falkirk, City of Edinburgh and West Lothian, where average prices increased by 12.7 per cent to £123,800, 12.5 per cent to £252,992 and 12.0 per cent to £153,550 respectively. Decreases were recorded in Aberdeen City and Inverclyde where prices fell by 2.1 per cent to £160,464 and 1.4 per cent to £97,924 respectively.

Increases in sales volumes were recorded in less than one quarter (7) of local authorities in January 2018, when comparing volumes with the previous year. The biggest increases were in Stirling and East Ayrshire, where volumes increased by 21.0 per cent to 121 sales and 11.3 per cent to 128 sales respectively. The biggest decreases were in Moray, Aberdeen City and Aberdeenshire, where volumes fell by 32.8 per cent to 86 sales, 25.1 per cent to 191 sales and 24.7 per cent to 216 sales respectively.

Across Scotland, all property types showed an increase in average price in March 2018 when compared with the same month in the previous year. Terraced properties showed the biggest increase, rising by 7.6 per cent to £121,637. The average price of flatted properties showed an increase of 5.9 per cent to £104,160, the smallest increase of all property types.

The average price in March 2018 for a property purchased by a first time buyer was £117,837 – an increase of 6.2 per cent compared to the same month in the previous year. The average price for a property purchased by a former owner occupier was £175,306 – an increase of 7.1 per cent on the previous year.

The average price for a cash sale was £134,530 – an increase of 6.2 per cent on the previous year – while the average price for property purchased with a mortgage was £151,344 – an increase of 6.9 per cent on the previous year.

ENDS

Notes to editors

Registers of Scotland is the government department responsible for compiling and maintaining registers relating to property and other legal documents in Scotland. Registers of Scotland records and safeguards the rights of the individual while providing open access to information on the registers.

The UK HPI is now published on the second or third Wednesday of each month with Northern Ireland figures updated quarterly. Previously these figures were published on the second or third Tuesday of each month with Northern Ireland figures updated quarterly. See the calendar of release dates. Further information on this change is available in this statement.

For the full picture and detail, access the UK HPI and the HPI Scotland. As with other indicators in the Housing Market, which typically fluctuate from month to month, it is important not to put too much weight on one month’s set of house price data.

A blog post by Rhys Lewis from the Office for National Statistics has been published explaining why there are revisions to UK House Price Index data and what is being done to make provisional estimates more accurate. An accompanying article has also been published which focuses on the amendment made to the estimation model when calculating the provisional estimate in the UK HPI and the impact of this change.

In addition to the enhancements to the UK HPI that were summarised in the anniversary news release, a comparison guide has been produced that compares the source data, index and methods of the different house price index measures that are published in the UK. This guide highlights the strengths and limitations of each measure to aid users in choosing the most appropriate index for their requirements.

Separate HPI releases are also published by HM Land Registry and Land & Property Services Northern Ireland, which focus on the figures for England and Wales and for Northern Ireland. The Office for National Statistics also publishes a monthly HPI statistical bulletin with commentary on the whole of the UK.

The new UK HPI was launched in June 2016 initially as an experimental official statistic to allow for users to acclimatise to the format of the new HPI, to evaluate user reaction to the new data, evolve the publication of data further to meet user requirements and to further develop the data sources used in the production. We removed our experimental statistic status from 13th February 2018.

Further information about this change in status and the improvements introduced to the UK HPI since its launch can be found in section 1.1 of About the UK House Price Index. The HPI working group will continue to progress with the assessment of the UK House Price Index as a National Statistic.

Please note that the Northern Ireland Residential Property Price Index, used as a component source in the production of the new UK HPI remains an official statistic.

On Thursday 23 November 2017, the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) confirmed the UK HPI will be awarded National Statistics status if 8 requirements are addressed. Further information about the OSR assessment is available in a news release published by our partner HM Land Registry.

Registers of Scotland began compiling quarterly statistics on the housing market with the completion of the extension of the Land Register to all counties in Scotland in April 2003. The differences in methodology between our quarterly statistics and the HPI are highlighted here. Charts are also available on our website to allow comparison between the two statistical outputs and to explain the key differences.